An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
In 2018, former professional tennis player John-Laffnie de Jager challenged every sportsman and sportswomen around the world to shake their opponent’s hand both before and after every competition. His theory is that the physical act conveys a sense of mutual respect. That, in turn, should bring out the best of the athletes from both a performance and sportsmanship perspective. I love the idea.
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The USTA uses the US Open as an opportunity to wine and dine VIPs. It makes sense because a registered non-profit, the USTA needs donations from generous benefactors in order to operate. The USTA brass enforces a strict dress code in the Presidential Suite at the US Open which hosts the upper echelons of benefactors for their own and related causes. The list of prohibited attire includes denim jeans and shorts. Perhaps most shocking of all, tennis shoes are not allowed.
Katrina Adams, the trailblazing former president of the USTA brazenly violated the all-white dress code at Wimbledon when completing there as a player in 1994. She had the audacity to wear a pair of distinctly non-white tennis panties during a singles match at the Championships that year.
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Katrina Adams has a long list of firsts. She was the first African American President of the USTA. She was also the youngest, the first former professional player, and the first person to serve two consecutive terms in that role. To say that she is a trailblazer is an understatement.
Alternate scoring methods were covered in great detail during this site’s initial march through the ITF Rules of Tennis in early 2020. However, there are a couple of nuances to the format in one of the appendices that deserve additional attention. I am guessing that both situations are relatively unknown to recreational tennis players.
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The tennis ball machine is a powerful tool for fine tuning stroke mechanics and building consistency. Effective ball machine use starts with the identification of the purpose for each drill. In the absence of that, machine sessions can regress into simply standing flat-footed while playing easy balls from the center of the court. There is an art to getting the machine settings “just right.” However, the real skill is identifying an objective and coming up with an appropriate pattern to work on it.
The BNP Paribas Open kicks off this week and is the only tournament in the main ATP and WTA calendars. Proof of vaccination is required for all attendees, which means that children 12 and under will not be permitted to attend.
In a column following the Laver Cup this year, Tennis Analyst Jon Wertheim observed that in this age if polarization, most fans consider the the exhibition to be either flawless or worthless with no middle ground. For the sake of transparency, I am firmly in the “worthless” camp, as evidenced by my pejorative use of the word “exhibition” when characterizing the event. I have always seen The Laver Cup as a big money grab to cash in on the appeal of Federer and Nadal while they are still playing. Tennis needs to be building future stars rather than clinging desperately to the waning glory days of the most marketable male players in the history of the sport.
During the US Open this year, I received numerous daily emails from the USTA reminding me to tune into the broadcast of the tournament. Other messaging that hit my inbox promoted purchase of tickets for the event. There were also frequent reminders to engage with the “virtual grounds” of Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The messaging repeatedly hawked US Open merchandise. Following the conclusion of the tournament, I received notifications from the USTA inviting me to participate in an auction of the art that was displayed on the tournament grounds this year. It was a lot of direct email marketing.
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Tennis tournaments are played with an “official” ball and there is a 1 in 4 chance that neighboring courts receive identical balls.